Dec 19th 08

At last shearing has finished, what a long drawn out process it has been this year. We finished on Sun the 14th Dec on a scorcher of a day, by far the hottest this season. Such a relief to know it is all over.

Everything seemed to be so rushed, I got very little time to try out the young dogs.Yindi had a short session with the lambs and shows real promise, plenty of cover and enough strength, and her mothers mad keeness to work. I was walking the young dogs one day and Yindi spotted Murray in the sheep yards moving a few lambs around so raced in to help him. He was quite impressed. She is ready for some real work and training so after christmas hopefully it will happen.

I think Balto is probably ready to start too after yesterdays chook episode. Apart from the odd chase around he has not bothered them too much but switched on big time. I was impressed with the lovely block and cover but not so impressed that I could not catch the little ratbag. I eventually got him to listen and sit down and I caught him.

Zinc is still not showing much interest, which is great really, I am in no hurry.

The adult dogs worked hard all shearing, I was very pleased with them.

On Mon I headed to Bunbury to christmas shop, which was a little more exhausting than a day in the sheep yards. I left at 7.30am and got home at 6.30pm, what a madhouse.

What has happened to peace and joy and love and the birth of Christ, the real meaning of Christmas, it has disappeared in a whirl of commercialism, sad indeed.

With great timing my fridge died. It is still under warranty and has already been fixed before so I am not too happy with it.

They did supply a replacement until they fix it but of course it is much smaller and opens towards the wall, which does not sound like too much of a problem but actually makes it tricky to open when one is not used to it.

Today is the first day of harvest, the contractor arrived yesterday and broke down, but has got going today. We don’t do a lot of cropping, just some oats to feed our sheep on, so it will not take to long, barring breakdowns.

I have made a start on the house but still a fair way to go. So much dust, so little time.

Tried to weed the garden but it defeated me, so I just made enough space to plant my tomatoes, pumpkins, celery and cabbages, and left the rest to grow and invade at will.

So far 11 baby peachicks have hatched including 7 white babies 2 of which I have sold already. The whites are popular. The hen in the tank hatched out 2 coloured babies. I keep all the coloured ones and sell the whites as they are too vunerable to foxes for free range on a farm.

I also have 65 Araucana chicks and another lot of 60 hatching as I type. I usually have a few broodie chooks sitting on some eggs waiting, and when the chicks hatch in the incubator, I go down at night and pop about 20 chicks under each hen.

It always amuses me. The hen wakes the next morning with all these chickens and mothers them happily fortunately not noticing she only had three eggs under her.

Funny tastes my dogs, Balto loves nothing better than a raw broccoli head to chew on, of which he eats the whole lot and Yindi loves to munch on a banana skin. Silky enjoys apples, and Dolly figs.

Christmas is nearly here. We will be having it at home here with our family, which suits me I prefer not to drive anywhere on Christmas day.

Then perhaps we can get back to more important things in life. Like dog training with friends.